A book by Alice Walker

Meridian ~ by Alice Walker, introduction by Tayari Jones, 1976, literary fiction (Georgia), xxi + 261 pages

As she approaches the end of her teen years, Meridian Hill has already married, divorced, and given birth to a son.  She’s looking for a second chance, and at a small college outside Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1960s, Meridian discovers the civil rights movement.  So fully does the cause guide her life that she’s willing to sacrifice virtually anything to help transform the conditions of a people whose subjugation she shares.

  

Meridian draws from Walker’s own experiences working alongside some of the heroes of the civil rights movement, and the novel stands as a shrewd and affecting document of the dissolution of the Jim Crow South.  This classic novel was written by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Color Purple.

1. On Monday, the novel I discussed was about addiction to food, HERE.
2. On Tuesday, I wrote about the expanded edition of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, HERE.
3. On Wednesday, I wrote about what we should eat, HERE.
4. Thursday's post was about an accidental command to Alexa, HERE.
5. Friday's post was all about celebrating Juneteenth, HERE.
6. On Saturday, I wrote about the summer solstice, HERE.  It's already hot.

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Summer Solstice

Summer officially began last night at 9:42 p.m.  Let me tell you a story about the change from spring to summer in 1963, exactly 62 years ago.  My youngest child was born four minutes before that spring became summer.  That means all of my children have reached retirement age and COULD quit working.  Some of their children also have children of their own, giving me SIX great-grandchildren (so far).  Are any of you reading this blog post also proud great-grandparents?

Juneteenth celebration

Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States and is celebrated annually on June 19th to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.  Here at my senior center, we will have a special celebration today sponsored by our African-American neighbors.  Genies, who lives above me, ordered wristbands like these to give people, and I'm still deciding which of my shirts or blouses to wear today.

Added later:  I decided to wear BLACK jeans with a short YELLOW shirt over a longer GREEN shirt (so green showed at the neck, arms, and bottom) with a RED hat on my head.  Genies also gave out pins to wear on our shirts.

Alexa is listening

I was talking to a friend on the Welcome Desk (which means she's a resident who volunteers to greet and direct visitors).  She always has her Alexa device and is usually playing music by Elvis and others from long ago.  If folks have requests, she tells Alexa to play it.  Anyway, I mentioned a sign I had seen in reports about the recent No Kings protest saying "Alexa, change the president."  The music stopped and we looked at the Alexa device, which was trying to figure out how to respond to my command!

The word for today is FOOD

 Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? ~ by Mark Hyman, 2018, diet, 400 pages

Did you know that eating oatmeal actually isn't a healthy way to start the day?  That milk doesn't build bones, and eggs aren't the devil?

Even the most health conscious among us have a hard time figuring out what to eat in order to lose weight, stay fit, and improve our health.  And who can blame us?  When it comes to diet, there's so much changing and conflicting information flying around that it's impossible to know where to look for sound advice.  And decades of misguided "common sense," food-industry lobbying, bad science, and corrupt food polices and guidelines have only deepened our crisis of nutritional confusion, leaving us overwhelmed and anxious when we shop for food.

Dr. Mark Hyman takes a close look at every food group and explains what we have gotten wrong, revealing which foods nurture our health and which pose a threat.  He also explains food's role as powerful medicine capable of reversing chronic disease and shows how our food system and policies impact so much, including the environment, the economy, social justice, and personal health.  He paints a holistic picture of growing, cooking, and eating food in ways that nourish our bodies and the earth while creating a healthy society.  The book includes recipes to achieve optimal weight and lifelong health.

          

It's a bird ... a plane ... It's Jonathan, now complete!

Jonathan Livingston Seagull: The Complete Edition ~ by Richard Bach, photos by Russell Munson, 1970 and 2014, fiction, 164 pages, 10/10

I first read this book back in the 1970s and several times since then.  Yesterday, I went through the library to straighten books on shelves before going to eat in the Cafe.  I noticed the blue book on the shelf and thought, "I haven't read this in several years," and checked it out to myself.  In the Cafe, waiting for my food, I realized this is NOT the book I've read over and over.  It's new and has a whole fourth section.

"[T]he new complete edition of this philosophical classic, perfect for readers of all ages — now with a fourth part of Jonathan’s journey, as well as last words from author Richard Bach.

"This is the story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules … people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves … people who know there’s more to this living than meets the eye:  they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than they ever dreamed.

"A pioneering work that wed graphics with words, Jonathan Livingston Seagull now enjoys a whole new life."

Monday Musing

Eat Only When You're Hungry ~ by Lindsay Hunter, 2017, literary fiction (Florida), 224 pages

This one's about a father who searches for his addict son while grappling with his own choices as a parent (and as a user of sorts).  It follows 58-year-old Greg as he searches for his son, GJ, an addict who has been missing for three weeks.  Greg is bored, demoralized, obese, and as dubious of GJ’s desire to be found as he is of his own motivation to go looking.  Almost on a whim, Greg embarks on a road trip to central Florida, telling himself it's a noble search for his son.

So we go with Greg on a tour of highway and roadside, of Taco Bell, KFC, gas-station Slurpees, sticky strip-club floors, pooling sweat, candy wrappers, and crumpled panes of cellophane and wrinkled plastic bags tumbling along the interstate.  This is the America Greg knows, one he feels closer to than to his youthful idealism, closer even than to his younger second wife.

As his journey continues, through drive-thru windows and into the living rooms of his alluring ex-wife and his distant, curmudgeonly father, Greg’s urgent search for GJ slowly recedes into the background, replaced with a painstaking, illuminating, and unavoidable look at Greg’s own mistakes ― as a father, as a husband, and as a man.  Eat Only When You’re Hungry is a study of addiction, perseverance, and the insurmountable struggle to change.

Musing (okay, pondering)

I went browsing for another book in the Crown Center library and noticed this one.  It looks like we've had this one on our shelves since May of 2019, but I don't remember ever seeing it.  (Of course, that's not a difficult thing to imagine when many, many books on are the shelves and shelves and shelves of books, right?)  So I signed it out and brought it home with me.